Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Indian Cricketer MS Dhoni expressed his commitment to make Nepal the number one cricket team in the world.
Fact
Viral video actually shows MS Dhoni speaking during the launch of a coffee table book.
A video allegedly showing Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni expressing his commitment to make Nepal the world’s best cricket team is going viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @kamall1524 posted a video clip showing Mahendra Singh Dhoni speaking on the microphone. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Dhoni [the coach] asserts that he will make Nepal the number one player in the world.” Alongside the video clip, a photo of Dhoni wearing a Nepali cap can be seen.
The video posted on August 15 has garnered 1502 likes, and 22 people have commented on it.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker first checked the status of Nepal’s national cricket team’s coach and found an article, dated February 6, 2023, published in Kathmandu Post online. On reading the article, Montey Desai joined as Nepali cricket team’s head coach for two years in February 2023. The article quoted CAN Manager Binod Das as saying that they were hopeful of a long-term association with Desai. Desai had even asked for a three-year contract, the article quoted CAN Manager.
We, then, split the video into several key frames and ran reverse searches on them. A reverse search on a frame from the video clip led us to an article, dated December 29, 2018, published on the ABP live online. The image carried in the article matched the frames from the viral video. We found that the article was made from a speech of Dhoni during the launch of former BCCI president N Srinivasan’s coffee table book in December 2018.
Further, we ran a search on YouTube, by taking clues from the article, and found a video, dated December 28, 2018, published on the YouTube channel named Cricket Mania. We found that the video frame from 6.17-minute onwards exactly matched the viral clip.
A reverse search on the image showing MS Dhoni wearing a traditional Nepali cap (Dhaka Topi), we found several images (See here, & here) posted on social media in 2018 and 2021.
Thus our findings clearly indicate that the viral video actually shows India cricketer MS speaking at the launch of former BCCI president N Srinivasan’s coffee table book.
Conclusion
No, MS Dhoni has not expressed his commitment to make Nepali cricket team as the number one in the world. The viral video actually shows an old and unrelated speech of Dhoni.
Result: False
Sources
APB Live, Dec 29, 2018
The Kathmandu Post, Feb 6, 2023
Cricket Mania /YouTube, Dec 28, 2018
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
